ANIMAL REMAINS. 7 
o 
The Marsupial Order comprehends a large 
number of existing genera, both herbivorous 
and carnivorous, which are now peculiar to 
North and South America, and to New Holland, 
with the adjacent islands. The kangaroo and 
opossum are its most familiar examples. The 
name Marsupialia is derived from the presence 
of a large external marsupium, or pouch, fixed 
on the abdomen, in which the foetus is placed 
after a very short period of uterine gestation, 
and remains suspended to the nipple by its 
mouth, until sufficiently matured to come forth 
to the external air. The discovery of animals of 
this kind, both in the secondary and tertiary 
formations, shows that the Marsupial Order, so 
far from being of more recent introduction than 
other orders of mammalia, is in reality the first 
and most ancient condition, under which animals 
of this class appeared upon our planet : as far 
as we know, it was their only form during the 
secondary period ; it was co-existent with many 
other orders in the early parts of the tertiary 
period ; and its geographical distribution in the 
present creation, is limited to the regions we 
have above enumerated.* 
* In a liiglily important physiological paper, in the Phil. Trans. 
London, 1834, part ii. p. 349, Mr. Owen has pointed out "the 
most irrefragable evidence of creative foresight, afforded by the 
existing Marsupialia, in the peculiar modifications both of the 
maternal and foetal system, designed with especial reference to 
